4 (2005)

One of my all time favorites.

good back-story, and good acting

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

I'm starting to think that there's a conspiracy, all right: one that involves a wallop of money paid to those who have access to published columns in newspapers and film and art magazines to ensure that this or that film, despite its obscurity, will reach a higher status via a ratings point which will tag it with a "universal acclaim" or something within that range, thus ensuring unsuspecting folk (like me) will wander into theatres or rent the bloody thing, expecting a surprise, only to find myself racing to the bathroom to upchuck.This movie is one of them. It has definitely make me bypass any and every posted article I come across because it's rather clear that two things might have happened: either I didn't get the message that is so hidden beneath this film's inner realms as to be impossible to access, or they and I watched two entirely different movies that happen to share the same name. 4 is a dirty trick on the audience. It's no wonder that it appeared and disappeared faster than you can say "smorsgabord" and that despite the rating it got on Metacritic, no one had heard of it. It's terrible with sugar on top.Firstly, there is the ever-present number four from start to finish. While having a little symbolism here and there is okay, and it's been done with various degrees of success in many well-known movies, this movie is panting with it. Four dogs at the start of the movie, looking at the camera in a heretofore empty street when suddenly, machinery drops onto the foreground and proceeds to rip open the asphalt. Four people in a bar, although one of them is a non-entity. Three of them go their separate ways but are linked nevertheless, not only to each other but to what their lives are not. While this concept may work, the movie meanders so much -- particularly with the story of the would-be model played by Marina Vovchenko which goes into the territory of the extremely bizarre, and not in a good way -- that the initial theme gets lost in translation. Or maybe, like I said before, I just "didn't get it." The problem also lies in that so much time is spent on Marina's story (which revolves on the death of her sister, from bread-chewing, no less, and the subsequent, shrill mourning which follows) that any interest in the inherent Surrealism dissipates without a trace. So what if the same horrifying tales that the three strangers interchanged in a bar seem to have a truth of their own? The director doesn't invest much time in truly tying them together, or weaving a tighter story that could, in a David Lynchian way, intersect either with the past-present, or within alternate dimensions, or even as a straightforward, mundane science-fiction story. This is an uphill battle against an insurmountable wall that only a saint (or someone into the weird for weird's sake) could endure.

I have just seen this film by Russian DVD. Technically it is a very interesting film. It is a really a contemporary cinema art, in the sense that we now live in the time after the cold war, after the end of typical genre films and studio system.This film has nothing in common with classic cinema before 1980s. From aesthetic point of view it is a clearest example of a Russian postmodernist cinema,which has existed. in fact, from 1980s.Before the beginning of the Perestroika such a stream was limited in the circle of independent filmmakers and officially banned films of some directors. Now almost all the films of that trend is available to Russian and foreign people. Yes, they are not banned, people can see such films on VHS or DVDs,if not in theaters. I wonder if contemporary Russian film-goers can see in this work someone sympathetic to, or even somewhat common with, themselves.Well, we have heard and read about the Past of Soviet Union, cruelty of the totalitarian regime. We have watched it in the cinema of Alexei German. I know my Russian friends today live utterly normal life. I cannot understand why this almost fictional harshness must be shown to viewers today. Well, it is a postmodernist film, such as that of Michael Haneke or other intelligent Europen filmmakers. This is really a respectable cinema art, but I feel something missing in it, especially when compared it with old Russian films(they are called by Russians as "nashe staroe kino"--"our old cinema"). This simple word expresses ideal relationship between film and film-lover. "Andrei Rublyev" and "My friend, Ivan Lapshin", for example,have been favorite films of many Russian people. They loved these films. But I can not imagine my Russian friends, who are normal and intelligent people, could love "4".Maybe I am not right. Maybe someday "4" may become one of favorite films of Russian people. But if it will happen, surely not in such a way, as with "nashe staroe kino".

The movie is basically the story of a Russian prostitute's return to her home village for the funeral of a sister/friend. There are a couple of other minor story lines that might actually be more interesting than the one taken, but they are not fully explored. The core of the movie is the funeral, wake, and later controversy over the future of a community of crones that make dolls and sell them to buy vodka but are now missing the artist who made their dolls marketable. Apparently, the movie is unedited. The prostitute's journey from the city to the village is an excruciatingly endless train ride and tramp through the mud. Maybe that's supposed to impress us with the immensity of the Russian landscape. The village itself, such as it is, is inhabited by a legion of widows and one male, the consort of the dead girl. Continuing the doll business is problematic for everyone involved and eventually seems impossible. Most of the film is shot with a hand-held camera that could induce nausea. Another problem for Western viewers is that subtitles don't include the songs and laments of the crones. Don't go to this movie unless you're fluent in Russian.

An extraordinary work that was written by an amazing Russian writer, Vladimir Sorokin, and directed by a young talented Russian director, Ilya Khrzhanovsky. This film is a real trip that starts of with being a funny story, but by the time it ends, leave the viewer shocked among the other feelings! The great directing and sound directing creates an astonishing atmosphere and visual beauty thought the whole film, making it a very "acid" experience. These combined with Sorokins madness, creates a real different trip, for the people who likes good/surreal/different cinema as much as I do. I watched this film many times, but i still didn't get enough. I hope non Russian speakers will enjoy it, and understand the symbolism of some things in it...the dogs, the tractors.....I rated it 10, and for me it is the best Russian film since quiet a while...Check it out, you wont regret!!!